Harvest Season: Making Use of Every Last Bit

Industry, perseverance, and frugality make fortune yield.
--Benjamin Franklin

If I say the phrase "harvest season" what comes to mind? I think about bringing in corn, pumpkins, squashes, and apples.

In our summer garden, we eat our favorites, the best of the best. In our harvest season garden, I'm bringing in all of the odds and ends and some foods that don't look as great as their summer versions (celery is one of those veggies). So harvest season for me is all about bringing in the last of the edible veggies.

I've been working diligently at harvesting everything edible from our garden. Every day, I go out there to see what needs to be picked that day before it will no longer be a desirable food.

I told you about the carrot leaf pesto I made last week and the week before. This past Saturday, I picked every nasturtium leaf bigger than a dime to make a third batch of pesto. I filled out the quantity with parsley and watercress. The resulting nasturtium-watercress-parsely pesto is delicious. One of my favorite ways to use pesto is on macaroni pasta with a little diced tomato and Parmesan cheese blended in. When this current batch of pesto is gone, I'll make radish leaf and watercress pesto using veggies from the fall container garden.

I also told you about the crabapple sauce I made last week. I used a cup of it in the applesauce-raisin bar cookies that I baked over the weekend. Crabapple sauce can have a sharp flavor on its own. But in the cookies it was delicious. To eat this sauce as is, I blend it 50/50 with plain applesauce to mellow the flavor. I still have about 1/3 of the crabapples left to harvest. I plan on making cider with these apples.

One daughter had some time one day to help me harvest greens to chop and freeze. We harvested Swiss chard, sorrel, Brussel sprout leaves, and parsley on that day. You can cut about half of the Brussel sprout leaves at this point in the season without compromising the growth of the sprouts. We sliced them thin and froze in a large bag. The texture of Brussel sprout leaves is a lot like kale, but a bit thicker. The Swiss chard will be the first of the garden greens to die out from the cold, wet weather. So, I've been making an effort to pick those regularly for meals, as well and the large bag that we froze. Sorrel has a lemony taste but a texture much like Swiss chard. So we chopped and froze the sorrel and bagged with with the chard. The two together should go well in quiches, frittatas, and soups. Parsley will do well for several more weeks. But as we have so much of it, we're working at harvesting it for the freezer on a regular basis. Frozen parsley can be added to sauces, soups, stews, vegetable medleys, and winter pesto.

I harvested a third batch of unripe figs on Saturday to preserve in a light syrup flavored with cloves and lemon juice. So far I've canned about 16 jars of sweet green figs to enjoy throughout winter. When we finish a jar of the figs, I use the syrup to flavor and sweeten hot tea or pour over pancakes.

Yesterday I cut all of the long stems of rosemary to dry on the counter this week. Rosemary is a nice flavor addition to potatoes and various Mediterranean dishes. Later this week I'll harvest more thyme for winter cooking. Thyme is my favorite herb to use with beef dishes.

I picked the last remaining small green tomatoes today. I  chopped them fine and froze to add to chocolate spice muffins (Green Tomatoes in Hiding) when I bake again soon. It's time to pull the tomato plants up and pile them on the compost heap.

I also began harvesting the celery plants today. I pulled up about half of the plants, chopped, and froze the stems and leaves in a large bag to use in winter soups and sauces. I also harvested the last of the cucumbers and summer squash plus some green beans this morning. And I picked what are probably the last of the overbearing raspberries. One more cold night like last night and the raspberries are gone.

I will need to harvest the Brussel sprouts, the remaining Brussel sprout leaves, the remaining green beans, the rest of the Swiss chard, celery, and parsley, the last third of the crabapples, and perhaps one more batch of green unripe figs.

When your harvest is carrot greens or nasturtium leaves or unripe figs, you have to be creative in how you cook those foods and diligent at using them up. My lunches and dinners have featured a lot of oddball pestos, crabapple-apple sauce, the top leafy parts of celery stalks, and preserved unripe figs. You do what you've got to do.

It's been a lot of work. I mentioned to my husband that I could probably harvest every edible thing we grow if I had an assistant. But alas, all of my potential assistants have their own jobs. So, I'm doing my best to harvest what I can.